This morning’s infuriating and shortsighted North Carolina state budget cut

Here’s a story that’s unfortunately gotten very little, if any, play in the North Carolina mainstream news media. It comes, interestingly enough, from national NBC News:

“How politics buries science in landslide mapping

The six geologists were just starting their work, climbing the mountains of Western North Carolina to map the debris left behind by landslides over millions of years, when the political footing gave way beneath them. Opposition had been building from real estate agents, from home builders planning subdivisions, and then from politicians. When all that energy was released, the science was crushed flat.

The new Republican leadership in the legislature cut off all funding for the state’s landslide mapping project in 2011, and the five geologists were laid off. They had mapped just four of 19 counties. Only one geologist kept a state job, but he is not allowed to do any landslide mapping. Another is helping a mining company search for gold. Two are in private practice. The fifth is checking the work of road paving crews. And the sixth moved to Virginia, mapping landslides until the temporary funding for that project ran out.

Against the backdrop of the March 22 mudslide in Washington state, which killed 33 people and left 12 still missing as of Monday, geologists say the story of the team in North Carolina illustrates how America has never put forth a serious effort to learn from the earth’s past. Geology experts say science is often a casualty of land politics, as the nation fails to protect others who are unaware they are at risk from deadly landslides….”

4 Comments

LayintheSmakDown

April 25, 2014 at 11:52 am

Well if the government handouts would not eat hundreds of millions of extra dollars every year then things like this would not be cut. There have to be choices made so would you prefer this or Medicaid, or food stamps, or some other progressive baby be cut?

The good news is that the NCGA has set us up for prosperity. Everyone in the nation is giving us kudos for making a better environment by cutting taxes to help spur growth. Heck, you can see the effects already in the great unemployment news that comes out every month.

Susan

April 26, 2014 at 2:03 pm

The above comment is totally wrong.

LayintheSmakDown

April 26, 2014 at 6:40 pm

Actually, if you look at what is causing our deficits, it is actually correct. But I would not expect someone here to actually, you know research things to to actually have knowledge before making such and ill informed comment.

Jack

April 29, 2014 at 9:48 am

As the NCGA cuts the state budget programs such as this are dismantled that will ultimately negatively effect our quality of life in NC. In other words members of the NCGA are willing to put their constituent’s lives at risk. The NCGA used to say that if the state’s budget isn’t brought under control, whatever that means, our children and their children will carry the burden. Now their putting our children and their children lives at risk when they purchase homes on land that will slide.

As for the “great unemployment news that comes out every month…”, if you truly believe the unemployment rate in NC is going down then I have a bridge in New York I want to sell to you.